The norming of such evil must be protested. Join us here on May 25th at noon at CUNY offices, 217 East 42nd Street, NYSpeakers include Assemblyman Dov Hikind, Milo Yiannopoulos, Nonie Darwish,
John Guandolo, Lauri B. Regan, David Wood, statement by Caroline Glick and yours truly.

CUNY has invited a pro-terror, pro-sharia antisemite to give the keynote commencement address. And they will not reconsider. Universities have disinvited Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nonie Darwish, Ann Coulter, Milo, legions of conservative thinkers and voices in defense of freedom, but a vicious, pro-sharia, Jew-hater they will defend to the death and that is it right there. They fear jihad. They fear Islamic supremacists. They know no harm with come to them if they smear, defame, libel or cancel us. They know we don’t destroy, maim, behead like Sarsour supporters and their violent running dogs on the left.

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The left’s chokehold on the nation’s most powerful institutions continues, despite a Trump presidency and a Republican Congress, but this is a step too far. My colleagues and I are blacklisted from speaking almost everywhere because we stand in defense of freedom and oppose jihad terror and sharia. Anytime we are scheduled to speak, terror-tied Islamic groups and their supremacist leaders demand we be cancelled. But this annihilationist is being given the honor of commencement speaker?

Such sanction is so malignant and so evil, it cannot be ignored. There is a responsibility for the time we are living in.

The mainstreaming of evil leads to an unimaginable end. My colleagues and I have been demonized, marginalized and defamed by the enemedia and the cultural elites, while terrorists and their promoters enjoy promotion by these same quislings. Anyone who doesn’t think academia is aligned with the jihad force is deluded. Stop taxpayer funding of these hotbeds of radical inculcation.

Adolf Hitler and his violent, antisemitic political party the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei – DAP (German Socialist Workers’ Party) — were on the outer fringe of German society until he was invited to join mainstream parties in opposition to the Versailles Treaty. Inviting Hitler to join mainstream political parties in supporting the German referendum of 1929 was key, as it gained the Nazi Party recognition and credibility it could never have hoped to have gained on its own. Influential German businessman and politician Alfred Hugenberg made a coalition with Hitler, which gave Hitler huge legitimacy. After failing at the ballot box, Hitler, like Islamic supremacists in the West, came to understand that that power was to be achieved not through revolution outside of the government, but rather through legal means, within the confines of the democratic system.

An outspoken critic of Israel, Sarsour avidly supports the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement, a Hamas-inspired initiative that uses various forms of public protest, economic pressure, and lawsuits to advance the Hamas agenda of permanently destroying Israel as a Jewish nation-state.

Vis-a-vis the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict, Sarsour favors a one-state solution where an Arab majority and a Jewish minority would live together within the borders of a single country. She made clear her opposition to Israel’s existence as a Jewish state when she tweeted in October 2012 that “nothing is creepier than Zionism.”

In 2004, Sarsour acknowledged that a friend of hers as well as a cousin were both serving long sentences in Israeli jails because of their efforts to recruit jihadists to murder Jews. Moreover, she revealed that her brother-in-law was serving a 12-year prison term because of his affiliation with Hamas.

In October 2011, Linda Sarsour, who holds free-market economics in low regard, expressed, on behalf of “Muslim New Yorkers,” “solidarity and support” for the pro-communist Occupy Wall Street movement. In 2011 as well, the Obama Administration honored Sarsour as a “champion of change.” Not surprisingly, Sarsour visited the White House on at least seven different occasions during her beloved president’s tenure.

In May 2012 Sarsour tweeted that the so-called “underwear bomber,” an Al-Qaeda operative who in 2009 had tried to blow up a Detroit-bound passenger jet in mid-flight, was actually a CIA agent participating in America’s “war on Islam.”

In November 2012 in Baltimore, Sarsour—ever eager to peddle her woeful tale of Islamic victimhood—spoke at a Muslim Public Affairs Council conference titled “Facing Race: Xenophobic Hate Crimes.” This is the same Council that views the murderous Jew-haters of Hezbollah as members of “a liberation movement” that is “fighting for freedom.”

Sarsour was outraged when a police officer and an FBI agent shot and killed a young black Muslim named Usaama Rahim in Boston on June 2, 2015, when Rahim lunged at them with a military-style knife as they attempted to question him about suspected terrorism-related activities. Naturally, Sarsour’s assessment of the incident confidently traced everything back to race: “At the end of the day, a Black man was shot on a bus stop on his way to work and we should treat this like any other case of police violence.” Period. End of story.

According to CounterJihad.com, Sarsour has attended and spoken at numerous rallies sponsored by Al-Awda, a group that views Israel as a terrorist, genocidal state whose very creation was a “catastrophe” for Arab peoples.

Linda Sarsour will deliver commencement at taxpayer-funded school

The City University of New York (CUNY), a taxpayer-funded institution, is doubling down on its decision to host a leading anti-Israel activist who has been accused of anti-Semitism as its honored commencement speaker next month, a move that has generated calls for New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo to step in and cancel the address.

CUNY is set to host Linda Sarsour, a leading voice in the anti-Israel movement who has been condemned by human rights groups for her rhetoric and promotion of terrorism against the Jewish state.

Sarsour, a Palestinian American and executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, is scheduled to give the commencement speech for CUNY’s Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy.

Local lawmakers and pro-Israel activists have expressed outrage over the decision, calling on CUNY to cancel Sarsour’s appearance. CUNY leaders have continued to praise Sarsour and maintain the speech will take place as scheduled.

Sarsour has earned a reputation as one of the country’s most virulent anti-Israel activists. She has attacked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “bigot” and routinely condemns the Jewish state as racist. Sarsour attracted outrage in 2015 when she tweeted out a picture of a Palestinian child with a rock in his hand accompanied by the caption, “the definition of courage.”

Sarsour became a darling of the activist left as a participant in the Women’s March against President Donald Trump and other demonstrations. She also has embraced and partnered with Rasmea Odeh, an anti-Israel activist and convicted terrorist who was recently found guilty of immigration fraud in the United States for failing to disclose her ties to terrorism.

Dov Hikind, a New York City assemblyman and pro-Israel advocate, told the Washington Free Beacon that Americans across the country should be outraged that a taxpayer-funded school is celebrating an individual who once praised child terrorism.

“This is a woman who not so long ago put out a tweet with a picture of a young child holding rocks in his hand and Linda Sarsour put in that message, ‘the definition of courage,’” Hikind said in an interview with the Free Beacon.

“The idea this woman would get this honor at a CUNY commencement, a place my tax dollars pay for, is unbelievable audacity.”

Sarsour “is someone who is an apologist for terrorists, and that’s who we need to be an example for graduate students at a tax-funded university here in New York?” Hikind asked. “How do you justify in any way [these views]? People should speak out everywhere. This should be a no brainer.”

While Hikind and other pro-Israel voices have spoken out against Sarsour’s appearance at CUNY, Cuomo and activist voices such as the Anti-Defamation League have remained silent.

“The ADL speaks out 24/7 on defamation of the Jewish people and nothing can be more defamatory than Linda Sarsour’s statements about Jews and her glorification of Arabs throwing rocks at Israelis,” Hikind said in a statement. “But following the invitation from CUNY for Sarsour to address their graduates, the ADL’s silence has been deafening and shameful.”

One senior official at a national Jewish organization told the Free Beacon that Sarsour’s appearance at CUNY demonstrates that anti-Israel activism is still being mainstreamed.

“Linda Sarsour advocates a version of feminist intersectionality that, by design, excludes liberal Jews who support Israel but welcomes radical Muslims who deny women’s rights,” said the official, who was not authorized to speak on record. “In that sense she’s perfect for today’s upside-down academy. That doesn’t make what she says or what CUNY’s doing any less disgraceful. It makes the whole thing more disgraceful.”

CUNY has defended its decision to host Sarsour, telling students in a community message it is committed to all types of free speech.

Ayman El-Mohandes, the dean of CUNY’s Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, said in a statement that CUNY is committed to academic freedom.

“I hope you all join me in my firm view that a diversity of viewpoints and an open exchange of ideas is at the heart of our country’s strength, and our university’s strength,” El-Mohandes said in a statement. “It is why we at CUNY are so committed to academic freedom, a bedrock principle of our university.”

“This will be a very special and meaningful commencement for all of us,” El-Mohandes added. “I hope to see you all there to celebrate women in leadership.”

SIOA!

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The American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI)
The American Freedom Defense Initiative is a new organization launched by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. Our objective is to go on the offensive when legal, academic, legislative, cultural, sociological, and political actions are taken to dismantle our basic freedoms and values.